As a continuation of my previous discussion on my recent aversion to all things Google over the past month I have been moving my default search engine elsewhere. I have been a fan of startpage.com. I have heard from people I know that their search results are not nearly as good as google but they don’t log your searches so I made them my default search provider on my computers. I do use Yahoo sometimes as an alternative to Google. They may be close to Google in the data retention but the advise I got was they are a bit more transparent and better at fighting requests to hand over data. That is purely opinion but the opinions of people I trust.
Technology
My Sudden Allergic Reaction to All Things Google
I have recently had a technical dilemma. I have been a user of many Google services over the years. I have several Google Apps for Work domains. I post private videos of my family on Youtube. I have loved Google Voice long before Google owned it. For most of the time I have used their services I have know there have been some questions about what they do with all the data collected. From day one of Gmail you knew they were looking at your mail to give you ad’s. At the time I brushed it off, especially since i didn’t really start using gmail for a few years after it came out. After I did the lingering security questions were still there but because they provide services that really work well I didn’t question anything nor did I really care. The cool aid was great.
The problem I am facing recently is I have read more specifically about what data Google collects and how long they store it. Or rather how they don’t really say how long they store it. There are many discussions on the topic, here, here, here, and many other places. After reading a lot on the topic and talking with a few people I work with more knowledgeable on the subject than I am I decided the great user experience wan’t worth all I was giving them.
If was to move providers I needed first an email provider. 2nd I needed to stop using Google Voice.
Until very recently that was no small feat. I didn’t want to rely on my mobile alone. That is why I ported my mobile number to Google Voice in the first place. Thankfully as good timing would have it the new IOS software offers wifi calling and handoff to computers for calls. This is not nearly a replacement for google voice for me, but it made it easy to move back to one mobile for everything since as long as I had WIFI I know my number would work. With my new iPhone 6 I would be able to solve my Google Voice dependency. Next up of course is the bigger issue, my email hosting. If just picking anyone I would have gone with Office 365 or some other cloud offering. The problem was as I kept talking to people and reading more I have to say I wasn’t too happy with the US governments tactic’s on getting access to people’s accounts. After that statement I know people are going to say if you don’t have anything to hide, why would you worry. Well I don’t have anything to hide, but that’s not the point. I would rather not know my government could relatively easily get access to my stuff with a court order that apparently happens more often than you would like. I don’t think I am being paranoid guy about this. To me it feels more like ignorance is bliss. Since I do know how creepy stuff is apparently now a days I don’t just want to leave Google mail I want to ensure my data is safe where ever i put it.
I thought about my own server. I just don’t want to deal with it. The super secure Swiss email hosting provider was too expensive. I opted for a well known general web hosting provider in Switzerland were data privacy laws are much more strict than in the US.
Next up for me is to goto the T-Moble store and port my number. After that it is lots of mail copying to my new provider.
Finally a reason to use FaceTime
Loving the ability to send and receive FaceTime calls over the mobile network anywhere since I am in London and missing MC and the girls. MC just rung me up twice and I rang them once to check on a gift I wanted to get. That it works so easily is fantastic. This is why I love apple products they just work.
Synology DS412+
I have been a user of a Drobo for several years now. It meet my storage needs even if it wasn’t anywhere near as fast as i wanted it to be. I used my desktop computer as a server and had at one point two Drobo’s attached to it. This year my old one started acting up so I am down to one Drobo. I had been slowly upgrading the storage on it but it has become apparent that I needed an upgrade. Jayson suggested Synology since he loved his Synology NAS. I had read good things about them in the past but I wasn’t really sure I wanted a NAS. I ended up buying a much cheaper Transporter in an attempt to solve only one of the storage issues I had. I wanted a private cloud solution. That was a mistake. The Transporter was nice but I had issues with the software. It didn’t do exactly what i was looking for. It was close but just not enough. At that point I started to research all the things i could do with a Synology and I got very interested. It does what i want with private cloud storage as well as tons more features. I was sold and made the investment in one.
Today I received my Synology DS412+.NAS along with 2 4TB drives. I will upgrade to a 3rd drive after i get the system setup. 4TB of usable space wont be enough once I get started. I have already started copying my files onto the new NAS. I also got Plex configured but need to wait till I get my media moved over. That means it will be a few days as the transfer takes a long time.
Once I get all my data on the Synology I need to setup backups of the data back to my old Drobo so I have an extra copy. Once that is done I also have plans to try a cloud backup service. Backing up to one hard drive a year and putting it in offsite storage at my dad’s is not going to work anymore with this much data to backup.
Finally Ordered a New TV
I have had my current Sony Bravia 40″ LCD TV for 8 years. I got it at a huge discount as part of a Best Buy store opening I got to goto working at Partsearch. My dad got the exact same TV but his broke at least 3-4 years ago. Mine kept on working. It even won out against MC’s tv when we merged our stuff of course I didn’t think there was much contest since she had a 27″ CRT or something! Over the past year or two I have noticed dim marks in a pattern in the middle of the tv. At first MC didnt see them but then they became more apparent. She didn’t think there was any need to replace the tv and in reality it works perfectly well. The dark spots got me wanting something bigger and newer.
Last holiday season i decided to take all the gift money i got and put it towards a new one. The only problem was picking the right one. Good reviewed LCD TV’s were more than i wanted to pay even if I could afford it. I wasn’t sold on Plazma even though everything i read says that the new generations of them are really good and much cheaper than LCD. Burn in horror stories of years past still stick in my mind so it was back to LCD options. Then I found what I wanted but it wasn’t released yet. Finally I got my head in the game and the model I wanted was on the market after what felt like several months (because it was several months from announcing them at CES to them being able to be purchased).
So yesterday after work I went to the store to order my new Vizio 55″ M series. I did in fact goto Best Buy. I am not a fan of that store anymore but I wanted the TV professionally mounted and they had better options that I know people have had good luck with vs ordering from Amazon. I also went with a Vizio TV. Several people have said they are built like crap. I am hoping the online reviews are correct since many of them say they are good value TV’s. I don’t need earth shattering features. This TV comes with 3d and “smart” functionality both of them I don’t even want. I don’t care for 3d and my smart features will be gotten from my Sony Google TV that probably is better than the built in functions. The price was much better than more popular name brands like Samsung and Sony. Interesting during my research I found that Vizio actually sells a ton of TV’s. I am hoping the TV lasts and is as good as CNet said it was.
I looked at both the 50″ & 55″ but I opted for the 55″. My official reason is my eyes aren’t the best but when I was in the store with both TV’s next to each other the 55″ looks huge compared to the 50. I am hoping not to have to buy another one for a while so i figured i would get the biggest I can fit on my wall. The 55″ will just barely (fingers crossed) fit on the wall space we use.
The earliest they can deliver it is on the 16th. I can’t wait to plug it into my Bose speakers and give it a test drive.
After years of pondering if I should get a new TV, and months of finally saying yes I will get one I finally went out and ordered a TV today.
Another Jawbone UP
While I was away on vacation my jawbone UP broke yet again. Their warranty replacement process takes one to two weeks. They’re very good with giving you a replacement UP’s but it takes forever to get it. I am assuming since I have gone through six or seven of them and I don’t beat them up very much they are having problems with them and that is why they are quick to replace them. While I’m trying to actually lose weight and check my activity every day not having an UP for one to two weeks is very difficult. Because of that I decided to eat the $129 and get another one so I had it when I got home from vacation. I seriously contemplated getting the Fitbit Flex but I opted for another UP. MC convinced me to get another black band one instead of the blue one I was looking at. I’m glad she did because Jawbone I didn’t have any black ones in stock so the replacement one I am getting will be blue.
My 2nd Attempt at an iMovie Did Include Babies and Animals
After our trip to Jayson & Gretchen’s we had a ton of video of Teagan. I wanted to share it with our family but some of it was long clips with not much action and then we had several clips that were very short. Lauren’s awesome job of putting together my dad’s 70th birthday video got me to finally try iMovie a week or so ago. It went so well that I wanted to take the footage we had of Teagan with Jayson’s dog and clip it together. By doing that I learned that 1, it is pretty fun and cool to do. 2, its a huge time sink. Thankfully it was only 3 minutes of video i created in the end but i can see even slightly more elaborate videos sucking up my time. I already want to go back and make a montage video of Teagan’s first year, but I just dont have the time to do that right now.
Maybe i didnt try the software enough but I don’t remember iMovie being that easy a few years ago. I know Final Cut Express was not very easy and after trying both of them I gave up on video editing for a while. I am glad I gave it another try. These video’s wont be my last that I work on!
My 4th Jawbone UP
Today I received yet another Jawbone UP. It is my 2nd replacement band for my 2nd generation UP so that makes me on UP #4.
My UP is Broken
Today when I went to sync my Jawbone UP I discovered the end that you plug into your phone was recessed a bit. It made it difficult to plug into my iphone. In the end i was able to sync it but it was obvious the device was broken. I contacted Jawbone support and they are going to send me a replacement unit since this one is under warrantee. I have to just keep this one working until I get my replacement unit. It may take a week to 10 days to get.
Bose Cinnemate Speakers
For a while now I have know I need to get rid of my stereo. It is a great stereo. I probably wrote about it before but aren’t 100% sure. Either way I love it and it has served me well for years. The problem is with Teagan getting ready to crawl we know we want to get rid of it. At first I was looking to get a sound bar speaker “system” since it is one speaker and a subwoofer. The idea has been to get rid of all the wires and speaker stands that are all over our living room right now.
Several months ago I picked out a decent sound bar but wasn’t 100% convinced to buy it. Flash forward to today and that system is now not available and comparable ones are more money than I thought was appropriate for the quality I would get. I know what I have (an Onkyo 5.1 receiver and speakers) is overkill for our apartment but i also knew how much a downgrade the sound bar was. When i found a well reviewed sound bar in the $250 price range i thought that was good. Then when that wasn’t available a decent one was more money and the reviews weren’t as good. At that point my friend Jayson convinced me to go and get a Bose Cinnemate II system. It was much more than i wanted but the reviews were much better than any of the cheaper sound bars. I know many people have polarizing opinions of Bose but i have had good luck with them in the past, so I went to buy them. As luck would have it they were marked down in price. The higher end version was around the price of the lower end ones, and the lower end ones were marked down even more. I opted for the higher end model and just got them.
I have been happy so far, but the real test will be when I get my new TV that i have been planning on getting for a while and put on a good movie!